Send message to lawmakers about texting ban

Under Iowa’s current ban on texting while driving, a law enforcement officer who witnesses a driver texting behind the wheel is like:

A) A lifeguard who sees a swimmer struggling to breathe under water but who is unable to respond until the swimmer breaks the “no splashing” rule by thrashing around?

B) A truancy officer who sees school-age children walking around during the school day but is not able to stop and talk to them until they cross street against the light or start throwing some litter on the ground?

C) A health inspector who hears anecdotal evidence from trustworthy sources about non-hygienic cleaning standards at a local restaurant but can’t act until the owner forgets to file a license application?

The unfortunate answer is: D) All of the above.

For the past few years, it has been illegal in Iowa for anyone to use a handheld electronic communication device to write, read or send a text message while driving. Drivers younger than 18 aren’t supposed to pick up their phones at all while behind the wheel, but it’s still legal for adults to use a phone for GPS navigation and to dial phone numbers while driving.

Nearly all the states have some sort of ban against the incredibly dangerous and ill-advised practice of texting while driving. But Iowa is one of a small handful in which such a ban is considered a secondary rather than a primary offense — meaning that police can’t stop drivers solely because they are paying more attention to their smartphones than to the road. So for all practical purposes, any citation for texting needs to be connected to some other violation.

Unfortunately, a secondary ban isn’t strong enough to curb this risky behavior. The trend nationally, in fact, is that more and more adults — even those who fully acknowledge the danger — are starting to glance at their phones while behind the wheel. A survey by AT&T last year found that almost half of all the adults asked admitted to texting while driving — with six in 10 saying that they weren’t engaging in such behavior three years ago.

And a recent investigation by the nonprofit news organization IowaWatch found that, not only was the ban failing to reduce road crashes, but officers were seldom able to enforce it because of the practical restrictions. Last year, for example, Iowa convicted an average of only 2.5 drivers per county for texting.

During this year’s legislative session, there was some progress on a bill that would make texting while driving a primary offense — allowing state troopers and other law enforcement officers to pull over drivers simply for texting. But the measure died on the legislative vine.

Enforcing such a primary ban probably would be easier in Illinois, which completely bans the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. And in Iowa there could be legitimate questions as to whether a police officer was witnessing a driver illegally sending a text message or legally checking the GPS.

But the spirit behind such a ban is not to catch people engaged in bad behavior; it’s to stop people from engaging in dangerous activities that place other people at risk. (That’s also the spirit behind the new smartphone app, TXTL8R, being developed by the Iowa Department of Transportation. That app is designed to turn off a phone’s texting availability any time it detects movement at a speed of 15 mph or faster.)

Given the frustrating futility of Iowa’s current ban, we hope lawmakers next year will get the message and allow officers to pull over such “intexticated” drivers simply for posing such a public safety risk to both themselves and others.

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